


Apologies (Between You and Me)

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [50]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Gen, Guilt, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 22:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17712428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: Ana is far from faultless, but she has asked for forgiveness, has done her best to atone, and Fareeha?  Fareeha has not.Or,After Ana comes back, Fareeha struggles to come to terms with her own role in the breakdown of their relationship, prior to her mother's "death."





	Apologies (Between You and Me)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was informed by my own experiences w my family... but basically if u assume the cultural perspective that ur parents know whats best for u and will guide u throughout ur adult life... fareeha was really the first one to start to fuck up her & anas dynamic, by defying anas express orders and enlisting. obvs thats an order of magnitude below, say, faking ur own death like ana did, & shes def not the one who did Worse in their dynamic, but she still (from that perspective) has smtg to apologize for
> 
> & i understand that not all families come from places that believe that way abt respecting/obeying ur parents (& not all ppl in those places agree w that, either), but this isnt passing judgement on right or wrong its just observing that fareeha really Did That & exploring the implications of such, cause i feel like a lot of ppl who dont have family from the middle east/north africa dont really get how big of a thing that was. for context my dad almost disowned me when i was 14 for like, wayyyy less than that... & only didnt go thru w it bc it was illegal in the place we were living at the time. which sounds like a big deal but honestly i never loved that mf so it was w/e for me--point being that fareeha REALLY did risk it all

It has been months since Fareeha could be found here, the Watchpoint’s shooting range, at this hour—three of them, she has counted.  It has been months since restlessness drove Fareeha here, since she was desperate enough to try shooting her emotions away.  It has been months since Ana returned, and yet that is what torments her, even now.

She ought to be over it—or, not _over_ it, because there are some things a person cannot easily make sense of, not ever, but she should be more in control, at least—for they have had months, now, to reconcile, months for her to accept that her mother is back in her life, months for her to learn again what it means to be a daughter.

Really, she has had years: five of them, since the letter.  Yet five years is not enough, it seems, to recover from the totality of it all.  She was no one’s daughter, and then the woman who was once her mother died, and then she lived, but had abandoned her former life, her former self—thrice were they severed, and each seemed somehow more final than the last. 

But here they are, nine years since the first severance, seven since the second, five since the third, and now the woman who was no longer her mother, who became the woman who was no longer, who became the woman who was not the woman who once she was, is returned to her, and restored in the full.

_Ana Amari.  Alive.  Her mother._

She does not know what to make of it.  Would anyone? 

Five years ago, she learned that her mother had not died, and that was a shock enough, but worse was the knowledge that, despite her miraculous survival, her mother had no intention of returning to her former life, and why would she?  What was there for Ana Amari?  An ex-husband?  The ashes of an organization that left her for dead?  A daughter she no longer had any relationship with?

It stings, knowing that Ana would not come back for her, but will come back for this, for the Recall, for a legacy. 

(What good is a legacy with no one to continue it, in any case?)

Seven years ago, she learned that her mother had died, and with her any chance of the two of them reconciling.  It should not have hurt Fareeha as it did, should have been nothing more than a formality.  They were never going to speak again, were not even acknowledging one another as family, had existed in such a state for two years.  Why should Ana dying change anything?  They were already dead to one another, had been for two years.

Two years, in the face of twenty-three more.

(There are nights, still, when Fareeha dreams that she is getting the news all over again, that her mother has died.  Estrangement only sharpened the pain.)

Nine years ago, Fareeha abandoned Ana.  It is her dirtiest secret, the part about her for which she feels the most shame, that before Ana died, before she refused to return, it was _Fareeha_ who left, Fareeha who decided that, if being Ana’s daughter meant that she could not join Overwatch, could not fight for the things she believed in, she would rather not have a mother at all.  It was not Ana who decided that, if Fareeha were to enlist, they would not speak again in that lifetime, it was Fareeha.  Her mother told her not to go, that she did not know what it was she was doing, and Fareeha left anyway.

At the time, it felt right, and Fareeha was certain of the choice she made.

(Her mother was right: she knew not what she did, and she regrets it, now.)

That is why she finds herself here at the shooting range at 04:30—not because her mother abandoned her, and the anniversary of it is therefore a painful thing, but because there was a version of her, once, who thought she _wanted_ that, wanted to sever entirely her relationship with her mother, thought that her life would be easier without her mother in it, and she cannot reconcile the Fareeha who wanted that with the Fareeha who was destroyed when her mother died, with the Fareeha who was furious that her mother would not return to her, with the Fareeha who is trying, now, to rebuild a relationship with the woman who left her—the woman whom she left first.

No one else on base knows, not even Angela. 

(How could she tell her girlfriend about this?  How could she explain to the woman whose entire career was shaped by the loss of her parents that she threw her own relationship with her mother away?  How could she defend a decision that she knows, now, was a mistake?)

No one knows, except for Ana.

Her mother has kept her secret, is keeping it even now, and she knows this for a fact, knows it because when the others slip and mention their relationship, when they allude to the elephant in the room, the blame is always on Ana.  Angela says she is struggling to forgive her, struggling to understand how the woman who would have been mother to everyone could have abandoned her own daughter.  When Genji comes to her, and tells her of his own relationship with his family, it is clear that he, too, believes that it is she who was betrayed, is she who was left behind.  Even Jack, also newly returned, offers to be there for her if she needs him.

If she were a better person, she would tell them, would tell all of them the truth, so that they might have an easier time in forgiving Ana for leaving _them_ , but Fareeha does not know how she can, when she does not recognize in herself the woman who made the decision to leave her mother.

Whoever she was then, Fareeha is not that same woman now, has not been for many years, and it is impossible to reconcile her past self with her present, to understand what it was she was thinking when she decided that she was better off without Ana.  For the past seven years, she has known better, and for twenty-three before that, she knew the same.  In the intervening two years—she does not know who she was, cannot return to the frame of mind that made such a decision, cannot imagine how it could have felt right.  It feels like a choice made by someone else, and although she can remember it, can remember the words she said, it is more like watching a film than truly remembering something; the woman in that memory is not _her._

So perhaps it is understandable that it is so difficult for her to process this.  After all, it is hard to take responsibility for an action she can scarcely acknowledge as her own. 

She _should_ , she knows she should.  Sooner, rather than later.  But here she stands, nine years since the day that she told her mother that she would rather she were not anyone’s daughter, at all, than Ana’s, nine years since the day Ana promised her she would never be accepted into Overwatch, not while Ana had a say in the matter, and she is not apologizing, is alone on the shooting range, still dressed for sleep, hoping that if she destroys enough of the training bots then her anger will finally be directed somewhere besides herself.

Her mother, she can forgive—has forgiven already, in truth, even if her mother having left still hurts her, even if it is still awkward between them, even if she will never truly be over it, only able to move past it—but herself?

That she cannot do.

As a child, she _adored_ her mother, practically worshiped her, and everything in her life she has aspired to ultimately stems from that feeling, is a legacy of her desire to be a hero, as Ana was, _is_ , and she is not sure how she ever lost sight of that.

Jesse, Angela, Genji—so many of the people she has come to know, to love, lost their families, or were driven from them, and she?  She abandoned her own, kept her mother’s name only out of spite, because she knew it would hurt Ana all the more to see her daughter join the legacy she sought to end.

(It feels wrong to say that Ana wanted to _end_ the legacy she upheld, but it is the truth.  All soldiers hope that they will be the final generation; to win a war means nothing, if one’s children will only be lost in another a decade later.  If Ana had truly been successful in Overwatch, there would be no Recall, no need for Fareeha to be here, on base now.  Her mother was not successful, and Fareeha knows already that she will not be either.)

After her mother died, Fareeha learned from an aunt that Ana had nearly been disowned after becoming pregnant out of wedlock, had only barely managed to stay in the family’s good graces by marrying Sam shortly after Fareeha’s birth, and still might have found herself the black sheep had it not been for the Omnic Crisis, and what she did for the family name by serving with distinction; it haunted Fareeha to learn, haunts her still, the thought that her mother nearly lost her entire family for the sake of raising Fareeha, only to find herself with a daughter who would choose the fantasy of being a hero over her. 

(It was a fantasy, Fareeha knows that now.  There are no heroes, only flawed people who somehow manage to do enough good that their mistakes are forgotten.  She is trying to be something bigger than herself, to do something better with Overwatch, because on her own?  She is no hero, none of them are.  Ana knew that firsthand, and she warned Fareeha, but still she did not listen.)

What must that have felt like, such a betrayal?  Fareeha cannot imagine.

Yet her mother never told her, never made her feel at fault for the choice Ana made in having her, and that was right, yes, but she cannot imagine it was easy, not to say it, when Fareeha told her mother that she did not think Ana loved her, only the _idea_ of her, and if Ana were truly a good mother she would let Fareeha make her own decisions.

Ana always loved her, Ana loves her still, despite her lack of apology, despite the fact that Fareeha will not even acknowledge aloud her equal culpability in their falling out.

It was not for Ana to decide what Fareeha would do, that much is true, but nine years on, Fareeha understands why she believed that it was.  Unlike Fareeha, who lived in Canada, and then near Swiss HQ for much of her teen years, her mother grew up in Egypt, and having spent considerably more time there in her adult life, Fareeha now understands a bit better Ana’s beliefs about parenting, has seen the totality of some parents’ ability to decide their children’s futures—understands, too, that such is not done out of a desire for control, but to _protect._ A good parent decides for their child what career will be best for them, offers to help them find a spouse, guides them, because parenting does not end when a child is eighteen.

Always, her father has let her do whatever it is she wants—for he believes the best thing for children is to learn from their mistakes, and for their parents to help them pick of the pieces afterwards.  What her mother tried to do was different, was to help her avoid the hurt entirely, and it is easy to see, now, how Ana would have thought that best, easy because she knows, now, how much her mother was suffering then, in Overwatch.  No mother would want that for their child.

Of course Ana would believe that it was necessary to spare Fareeha from such, and of course she felt she could not say it—she never told anyone, until it was far too late, still rarely speaks of it after her un-death.

Understanding does not, of course, solve everything, and Ana is not faultless, but she has asked for forgiveness, has done her best to atone, and Fareeha? 

Fareeha has not.

Instead of apologizing, instead of acknowledging her role, she is stood here, on the shooting range at 04:45, trying to do anything but think about her role in the falling out which has shaped her adult life, running away, just as she did nine years ago.

(Her mother will not fault her for it, she knows, her mother never held anything against her, even at her angriest.  She called Fareeha naïve, called her foolish, but she never called her ungrateful, never called her selfish, even if she must have thought it.)

After this clip, she tells herself, just as she has the twenty clips before, after this clip she will go, and she will prepare breakfast for her mother, and she will think of the words to apologize.  After this clip, she will know what to do, to say, that will help her make sense of all that she is feeling, will make it seem a simple thing, to explain that she does not know how to apologize, because she cannot understand her own motivations enough, anymore, to say what it was she was thinking, and to explain why it is she knows that she will not do the same again.  After this clip, she will—

—she will not get the chance to find out what she might have done, for when she removes the muffs from her ears for a moment, what she hears first is not the _click_ of the safety but the sound of her mother’s voice.

“You shouldn’t be here without shoes on, you know.”

Quickly as she can safely do whilst still holding a blaster, Fareeha turns in the direction of her mother’s voice.  Her mother is dressed, already, for the day, in the same long sleeve shirt and sweatpants she regularly wears around base, a sweater neatly folded on the bench beside her.  From her posture, Fareeha gets the sense that she has been here for some time.

“Your sandals aren’t much better,” Fareeha replies, because it is much easier than saying any of the things she knows she ought to.  “Socks won’t stop bullets.”

“Perhaps not,” Ana agrees, “But at the very least I’m dressed.”  She looks pointedly at Fareeha’s pyjama bottoms, an old pair covered in tiny rainbows, worn a bit thin in places, and then her face and voice soften, “If you’re having trouble sleeping, I can help.”

“I think,” Fareeha says, “That Angela might object to you drugging me.”

A click of Ana’s tongue, “I don’t see why, it’s her formula.”

That surprises Fareeha, although perhaps it should not.  “I’m fine, really,” she insists.  “I don’t like taking sleeping medication anyway.  Nightmares are worse.”

Of course, if Fareeha had gotten more sleep, she might have realized that such was the wrong thing to say—it only makes Ana more concerned, and she can see it in the shift of her mother’s face, knows just how worried Ana is when she motions to Fareeha to come sit beside her, moves her sweater out of the way quickly, with no regard for it staying folded.

“You know you can tell me about it,” her mother says, and perhaps on another day Fareeha might take her up on the offer, but today—today it was not the nightmares which kept her awake, it was guilt.

She will not lie to her mother, even if it would be easier, would be simpler to tell her of the things that haunt her dreams on other nights, would buy her time so that she could compose her thoughts.

“I’m not here because I had a nightmare,” says she, and if it were not for the gun in her left hand she would cross her arms.

“Oh?” her mother says, “You’re just here in your pyjamas before 05:00 for fun?  I’m here every morning, Fareeha, I know that isn’t true.”

“No I—I didn’t sleep at all, actually.”

Her mother’s face is less concerned, now, and more of a frown, “In that case, Fareeha, you really shouldn’t be shooting.  Come sit.”  This time, it is not an offer, but an order, and Fareeha acquiesces, places the blaster she has been practicing with down beside Ana’s rifle and sits—very stiffly—beside her mother.

Although she sat a good 30cm away, Ana does not notice, or does not care, that she has chosen to be so distant, and moves until she can comfortably reach and cup Fareeha’s cheek, one thumb rubbing small circles on the tattoo beneath her eye. 

“Now,” says she, “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

She should.  She _knows_ she should, because the very act of _not_ speaking about this is what weighs heaviest on her mind but—how can she?

What she says, instead, is “What if I can’t?”

“Nonsense,” Ana tells her, “You _can_.”

“Just like you could talk to Dad and I about things?” She regrets saying it the instant she does, did not _mean_ it, not really, but who is Ana to lecture anyone about not speaking about their feelings?  Her mother bottled everything up until it killed her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, in what she hopes is her first apology of the night, “I shouldn’t have said that, I—”

“No,” her mother interrupts, “No, you’re right.  And I shouldn’t push you.”

“I’m not right,” Fareeha says, “Because I’m not angry about _that_.”

“I see,” her mother says, and it is clear that she misunderstood Fareeha’s intent, in so saying, thought Fareeha was angry at her for something else entirely, because after a moment’s pause she removes her hand from Fareeha’s face, quick in the initial movement before lowering her arm slowly, as if she does not know what to do with it, and adds, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Fareeha says, “I’m not angry at you at all I’m—you know what today is, right?”

“Yes,” her mother says, and although she does not clarify what today is, to her, Fareeha knows from her tone alone that she remembers quite clearly the events of nine years previous.  “That’s why I apologized.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Fareeha says, and it comes off entirely wrongly, because her mother shrinks further back still, and she rushes to qualify that statement, “I meant—I should be the one apologizing, Mum.”

“What?” Before, her mother seemed unsure, but now she is only confused.

“It wasn’t all your fault,” Fareeha says, “And I know that.  And you’ve apologized enough times already but I never…” she trails off, unsure of how to continue.

“You don’t have to,” Ana reassures her, before breaking eye contact suddenly, “I made enough mistakes for the both of us.”

“I was the one who left, though,” Fareeha says, “Before you did.  I knew you meant well, but I left, and when I did I told you that—” she does not dare repeat it, “I said something that I didn’t mean.  I thought I meant it but I… I didn’t understand.  I knew but I didn’t _know_.”

“It’s alright, Fareeha,” her mother insists.  “We’re talking now, aren’t we?  It’s in the past.”

“It’s _not_ alright _,_ ” Fareeha insists, “Because I could’ve written back.  Not just to your most recent letter, but to any of them.  I knew you were only trying to protect me, but I didn’t think I needed anyone and I… I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong.  I knew that almost immediately, but I didn’t want to say it.  And then you died and I—” she is surprised when she chokes on the word, a sob welling up from somewhere inside of her, “I thought you were _dead_ , Mum, and I’d never written back.  And even when you turned out to alive I didn’t—I couldn’t—”

“Shh,” Ana tells her, pulling her in for a hug, “I’m not dead.  I’m right here.”

“I know,” Fareeha says, her voice somewhat muffled now that her face is buried in her mother’s shoulder, “I know you are I just—you might not have been.  You might have died, and if you had—we would’ve never made up.  And it’s my fault.”

“It wasn’t just your fault,” her mother says, “And it doesn’t matter now.  I’m here., and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I,” Fareeha says, because she needs to make that clear, needs Ana to know that she will not leave her again, either, will not turn her back on her mother, will bear in mind that her mother loves her, even if she does not always follow Ana’s advice.  “No more running.  From either of us.”

“No more running,” Ana agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> fareeha bought those pyjama bottoms solely bc they had teeny rainbows on them. its gay culture. and socks w sandals like ana is wearing ARE valid... ppl w bad circulation have rights! plus egyptians invented the sock first (fun fact) & they were even meant to be worn w sandals... it is the rest of the world that is wrong
> 
> anyway, hope u enjoyed. tho maybe thats the wrong word for this fic. well w/e. have a great day & dont accidentally stop talking to ur mom for nine years!! unless she sucks LAKJSDLFAJSDFSLAKJDFA


End file.
